Hillary Clinton’s American Health Choices Plan Conversation

UPDATE: HILLARY and surprise guest WES CLARK and Governor TOM VILSACK – In New York City – TOMORROW. Limited Available $50.00 tickets HERE. If you want to see Wes Clark and Hillary RUSH and register for this historic event. Few tickets left (in the line “were you referred by one of the hosts? Click General Wesley Clark). Many thanks to our Tip Line e-mailer.

WASHINGTON POST’S E.J. DIONNE – HILLARY PLAN SHOWS SHE ‘HAS THE CHARACTER TO BE PRESIDENT’: “There’s another message: She knows a lot more than she used to about voters and how to persuade them — and about herself. Leaders who can laugh at their own failures are usually more trustworthy than those who can’t… It could turn out that Clinton’s strongest argument is that someone who is aware of her own shortcomings, laughs about them and works at them has the character to be president.” [Washington Post, 9/18/07 ]

WASHINGTON POST ED BOARD – HILLARY’S PLAN IS ‘PROMISING POLICY’: “But Ms. Clinton, in setting out her route to universal coverage, adds some promising policy twists. The most interesting would limit the tax deductibility of employer-sponsored health plans for the wealthiest Americans, a sensible step toward fixing one of the most expensive and counterproductive parts of the tax code.” [Washington Post, 9/18/07]

HARVARD PROFESSOR ROBERT BLENDON – HILLARY’S PLAN OFFERS ‘LOTS OF CHOICES,’ COULD BE ATTRACTIVE TO ‘REPUBLICAN MODERATES’: “In her new plan, ‘she’s offering lots of choices,’ Blendon said. ‘I think it’s much less threatening, and it has provisions that I think a number of moderate Republicans could live with.’ [Concord Monitor, 9/18/07 ]

NEW REPUBLIC’S JONATHAN COHN, AUTHOR OF ‘SICK’ – ‘EVERYTHING ABOUT THE CLINTON PLAN…[IS] A REMINDER THAT THIS IS HER STRENGTH’: “Would she be vague, figuring she had the least to prove on the matter and that details could only come back to haunt her? Would she settle on something less than universal coverage, figuring the political support for it was too weak? Would she kowtow to the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies, which had started donating to her campaigns? The answer seems to be no, no, and no…Everything about the Clinton plan–from its thorough details to its well-orchestrated roll-out to its deft efforts at blunting interest-group opposition–are a reminder that this is her strength. And not a minor one to consider.” [New Republic, 9/17/07 ]

CEO OF KODAK PRAISES HILLARY’S PLAN – SHE RECOGNIZES ‘AMERICA’S HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IS A SHARED RESPONSIBILITY BETWEEN GOVERNMENT, BUSINESS AND INDIVIDUALS’: “Antonio Perez, the chairman and CEO of Kodak who has contributed to Clinton’s campaign this year, praised her plan in Monday’s release: ‘Senator Clinton’s healthcare reform plan recognizes that managing and financing America’s healthcare system is a shared responsibility between government, business and individuals.’” [The Hill, 9/18/07 ]

EZRA KLEIN – HILLARY’S POLICY IS ‘VERY, VERY SOUND’: “So the policy is very, very sound, and includes other sundry goodies like a Best Practices Institute that will vastly accelerate the amount of research done and distributed on the cost-effectiveness of treatments, better chronic care incentives, and so forth.” [Ezra Klein blog, 9/17/07 ]

COMMONWEALTH FUND – ‘IT’S A STRAIGHTFORWARD PROPOSAL…TRYING TO STRENGTHEN WHAT WORKS RELATIVELY WELL AND TRYING TO FILL IN THE GAPS’: “It’s a straightforward proposal in that it builds on the current system,” said Sara Collins, assistant vice president of the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation that focuses on health care. Clinton is “really looking at where the gaps are in the system and trying to strengthen what works relatively well and trying to fill in the gaps.” [Concord Monitor, 9/18/07 ]

CNBC’S JOHN HARWOOD – HILLARY’S PLAN ‘HAS HIT THE SWEET SPOT’:“[T]his is precisely the issue on which her experience may be most valuable. In other words, she’s drawing from both the left and right. Sometimes that’s a sign that a politician has hit the sweet spot.” [CNBC.com, 9/17/07 ]

THE ATLANTIC’S MATTHEW YGLESIAS – HILLARY’S PLAN IS ‘AMBITIOUS…UNDERCUTS SOME OF THE MAIN ARGUMENTS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE (INCLUDING BY ME) AGAINST HER’:“It certainly has the look and feel of a decently ambitious proposal…in a way that really undercuts some of the main arguments that have been made (including by me) against her” [The Atlantic, 9/17/07 ]

WASHINGTON MONTHLY’S KEVIN DRUM – ‘HILLARY’S PLAN STRIKES ME AS… THE POLITICALLY SAVVIEST AND MOST PRACTICAL OF THE LOT’: “Hillary’s strikes me as not just substantively as good as any of them (and better in some ways), but also the politically savviest and most practical of the lot. Given her experience in 1994 (she knows what won’t work) combined with the legislative canniness she seems to have developed in the Senate (she know what will work), that’s not too surprising.” [Washington Monthly’s Political Animal, 9/17/07 ]

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This is just fabulous. She has worked so hard for this. Lots of people, I am sure, have helped her. But she’s responsible for it, and she has to sell it, and by god she’s doing it. Guess everybody’s waitin on the webcast, huh. mollyj

“A day after releasing her health care plan, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., answered questions about it in a half-hour prime time webcast Tuesday evening on her Web site. Questioning began with Jay in St. Louis who asked a question Republicans plan to hit her with — whether this is really any different than the plan she tried to offer as First Lady 14 years ago.

Clinton said her new health care plan has a big difference — “it’s not government run.” She said people can choose from a wide variety of plans and those who like what they have won’t need to change. Clinton said what she is offering is targeted at the 47 million uninsured Americans, those whose plan is too expensive or those who face problems getting coverage for a pre-existing condition or for a particular procedure their doctor has recommended.

Clinton said everyone has a role to play to improve the nations health including Americans choosing healthier habits. She said insurance companies will have to change how they do business. “The way insurance companies make money now is by figuring out how not to insure [certain] people,” Clinton said. “It really undermines the quality of our health care.”

I had lunch today with an old friend who is general counsel for a major international company, and a Republican leaning independent. I told him I was supporting Hillary. He asked me how I thought this would affect business. I told him the effect would be positive, and used her health care proposal as a prime example. Also, I gave him a copy of the David Brooks article “From Revolution to Evolution” to explain how Hillary has matured as a leader and why businessmen should support her candidacy. If I had seen the other postings listed above, I would have had more ammo, i.e. the Kodak quote, but the Brooks article is a perfect segway into a broader discussion of the merits of Hillary’s candidacy to moderate Republican and independent business people.

Point of clarification: as much as Hillary’s plan is in the interests of business for competitive reasons, it is even more in the interests of working people, for financial ones, therefore all groups should support it.

Brooks statement that Edwards has turned shrill calls to mind an old saying among trial lawyers: when the law is on your side, argue the law; when the facts are on your side, argue the facts; and when neither the law or the facts are on your side pound the table.

The RW is out in full force attacking Hillary’s Health Care Plan.. Get ready for it!

As Valkyrie, I’m mounting my winged steed preparing for the battle. This is the issue the RW & LW will merge together for a major assault on Hillary by deliberately misinterpreting her plan as enslavement of the masses to Insurance companies.

The RW are a one trick poney. They have labored hard over the years to create a false impression of Hillary, and it no longer works. For years they have tried to portray her as someone who would mandate government based solutions, but the health care proposal and the inclusive process by which it was developed puts a lie to that fiction. Are we to understand they are now pushing the idea that her plan would enslave us to insurance companies? If so then answer is simple: it will make insurance companies responsive and empower the American People (insureds and uninsureds alike). Frankly, that sounds more like the argument of the left. From what I can tell they want insurance companies out of the process altogether. They believe there is an inherent conflict of interest between profit making on the one hand and patient care on the other. They prefer a state run bureacracy even though it is not in the interests of the patient. They are just as nonsensical as the far right, but in a different way.

Hey check out this zinger: Edwards campaign has been lashing out at Hillary for holding a Washington luncheon for fund-raising thingy.

Joe Trippi, a senior adviser to Mr. Edwards, made his criticism in a fund-raising e-mail message that said the luncheon highlighted how Mrs. Clinton was a “corporate Democratic insider” and that the event was a “poster child” for “what is wrong in Washington.” yada yada yada etc…

And heres a beauty of a reply from clinton camp, (they sure are good at this) ZNAP!!!!
Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, however, did not let the attack pass quietly and responded.

“Increasingly negative attacks,” a spokesman, Phil Singer, said in a statement to Politico .com, “against other Democrats aren’t going to end the war, deliver universal health care or turn around John Edwards’s flagging campaign.”

I just saw that Taylor Marsh has commented this little story, and I saw it on politico, perhaps where it first appeared, not sure.
Here’s a quote from politico:
“Having seen Clinton campaign in the past, this is the sort of thing her campaign views as a gift. The complaint that she’s too establishment also muddies up Obama’s criticism that she’s too divisive.”

There was also a comment to the politico article which I find to be very true, and wishfully so, so I’ll just post it, it’s from someone named James:

“Attacking her for being establishment nullifies Obama’s attack that she can’t unify the party. If the two of them are just going to throw opposites at her, all she has to do is point and laugh. As long as Edwards and Obama stay in this race together, they’re going to cancel each other out.”

And Taylor March writes: “Oh, snap! Trippi is out of his league on this stuff. As Ben Smith notes, it could be that the Edwards team is doubling down on negativity betting that Iowa Democratic primary voters will eat it up. Edwards needs Iowa so badly he’s got nothing to lose. Trippi wants to push up Clinton’s negatives in Iowa. But it sounds desperate, especially when you hand team Clinton a softball they hit down your throat.”

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then surely Hillary was flattered by the statement by Secretary of Health and Human Services that suddenly, as if by magic, W wants universal health coverage as well to cement his stellar legacy. Three reactions: First, I never knew this was on his agenda. Second, I wonder what Grover Norquist would say. Third, to quote the late Milton Friedman: “does a cat bark?”